from the big-brother-with-a-chip-on-his-shoulder dept

There's been lots of talk about internet surveillance lately, for obvious reasons. Authoritarian regimes, like China and Iran, have been using it to stifle dissent. Western countries have been using it by claiming that it's to "stop terrorism" (though, the evidence shows that's mostly just a convenient excuse). So, really, it shouldn't be any surprise to see governments embracing internet surveillance for more and more ridiculous ideas. Over in Thailand, we've written about the country's ridiculous "lèse majesté" laws that make it a crime to "insult" the king. This has resulted in some crazy situations in Thailand, including having all of YouTube banned because of a single parody video, an entire chat site shut down because some people said some stuff the king didn't like, and a US citizen threatened with 15 years in jail over merely linking to an unauthorized biography of the king.

So, perhaps it shouldn't be that surprising that a Thai news organization is reporting that the government is now planning on using mass internet surveillance to make sure that no one is even reading anything that the king doesn't like, which would violate those lèse majesté laws.

Thai authorities reportedly planned to implement a surveillance device starting from 15 September to sniff out Thai Internet users, specifically targeting those producing and reading lèse majesté content, a report says.... One said the device targets keywords related to lèse majesté and that it is relatively powerful and could access all kinds of communication traffic on the internet. Another source said it could even monitor communications using secured protocols.

That last bit seems highly questionable. If done right, encryption would make that kind of surveillance nearly impossible, so the idea that whatever system they're using could actually do that should be taken skeptically. Of course, it could just be that the government is leaking these claims to lead people to self-censor in the belief that they are being watched, even if it's not true. And if that's the plan, it appears to already be working.

After learning about this, a national level Thai-language newspaper editorial team has reluctantly resorted to a policy of greater self-censorship. Its editor warned editorial staff not to browse any lèse majesté website at work and think twice before reporting any story related to lèse majesté.

Of course, as we noted earlier this year, the leaders of the recent Thai coup have already been big on censoring the internet, and a law passed back in May lets the government "monitor and access the computer traffic, the use of websites, social media, photos, text, video and audio... which are deemed unlawful" and further to "stop the dissemination" of any such website. It appears these latest rumors are just taking it up a notch.

Of course, the chilling effects and impact on free speech of even rumors of such a system should be frightening to anyone who believes in free speech and an open internet where people can discuss things freely.

from the their-version-of-the-sims? dept

As you may or may not be aware, Thailand changes governments like we change the oil in our cars: every couple of months or three to five thousand miles, whichever comes first. As we previously covered, the latest in Thai military juntas are (surprise!) huge fans of censoring the internet while claiming they don't and taking down social media sites while claiming that they don't. The picture being drawn for the rest of the world is one of an unsteady military government whose primary unifying factor is that it really likes censoring stuff.

Thailand, which has been ruled by a military dictatorship for the past few months, has banned the video game Tropico 5 from appearing in stores, saying "some contents of the game are not appropriate for the current situation," according to publisher Kalypso Media. Tropico 5, of course, is a video game in which you can play as a military dictator, building and running your very own country in as sadistic a fashion as you'd like.

And, as we all know, subjugating millions of citizens as you laugh maniacally is for real life, not video games. The game, it would appear, hits a little too close to home for the Thai junta. After all, if citizens are allowed to play out what is essentially their government's own role, they may come to see how horrifically they're being treated and rebel. You don't want to remind those under your rule that they're under your rule, I guess.

The irony is not lost on Kalypso, the company that makes the Tropico series.

And here's Kalypso's Stefan Marcinek, also via press release: "Our distributor has been working hard to gain approval for the release, but it seems that the Board of Film and Video Censors deem some of the content too controversial for their consumers. This does sound like it could have come from one of El Presidente's own edicts from the game."

You have to think that a game mechanic was just born for Tropico 6, in which your dictatorial rule is furthered by banning video games.

from the sensing-a-pattern dept

We recently wrote about how the leaders of the latest military coup in Thailand (one of many that have happened there) summoned ISP officials to tell them to start censoring the internet, though they were adamant that it was not actually censorship. It appears that these coup leaders really like to flat out deny exactly what they are doing. Today, for example, they completely blocked access to Facebook for a few hours, and then blamed it on a "technical problem."

"We have no policy to block Facebook and we have assigned the ICT ministry to set up a supervisory committee to follow social media and investigate and solve problems," said Sirichan Ngathong, spokeswoman for the military council.

"There's been some technical problems with the internet gateway," she said, adding that the authorities were working with internet service providers to fix the problem urgently.

Not that such an excuse was believable, but it was made even less believable when the country's Information Communications Technology (ICT) Ministry came out and admitted that it had censored the site -- and will be asking other social media sites to censor themselves as well:

"We have blocked Facebook temporarily and tomorrow we will call a meeting with other social media, like Twitter and Instagram, to ask for cooperation from them," Surachai Srisaracam, permanent secretary of the Information and Communications Technology Ministry, told Reuters.

"Right now there's a campaign to ask for people to stage protests against the army so we need to ask for cooperation from social media to help us stop the spread of critical messages about the coup," he said.

In other words, there was no "technical problem." There was just out and out censorship, and the government is expecting much more of that, because they don't want anyone saying anything critical about the coup. That's pretty clear, good old-fashioned censorship, no matter what the coup leaders would like to claim. Also, given how much people seem to like things like social media, it seems like a pretty silly strategy to take that away from people, hoping it will somehow make them more willing to support the coup.

The meeting with internet service providers (ISPs) is likely to discuss the directives given to Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) yesterday, when the country was under martial law but before a bloodless coup was declared. Those directives instruct ISPs to block sites containing content related to the coup that is deemed inappropriate – though it’s unclear what that means or how it will be carried out in practice. Yesterday, six sites were blocked, and the NBTC made it clear that social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Line will be monitored closely.

But the really ridiculous and amusing part is where the NBTC insists that its censorship directives are not, in fact, censorship directives, even though that's the only legitimate way to describe them:

An NBTC representative said yesterday that this does not constitute censorship of the web.

As if to hammer home the point that this "non-censorship" absolutely is censorship in every possible way, the Thai military forcibly shut down a web livestream of ThaiPBS reporters covering the news (though, as you can see from the video, everyone seems fairly laid back about it).

Shortly after the forced broadcast TV shutdown last night, ThaiPBS continued with a live YouTube stream of their TV news. But as seen in this video (hat-tip to Coconuts Bangkok for spotting it), a pair of soldiers went into the ThaiPBS newsroom to get the livestream taken offline.

from the copyright-and-expression dept

Thailand has become a focus of international attention again recently due to the big protests on the street against the current government and the upcoming election, which the protesters claim symbolizes the continuing rule of the allegedly corrupted dictatorship of Thai ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. If you haven't been following it, you can read the details elsewhere, since it is quite complex and controversial. However, an interesting copyright issue has actually emerged from these protests.

Since the beginning of the protests, a key symbol of the protesters has been the whistle. The earliest flash mobs of the protest involved a large group of people gathered in public space, who all blew whistles at the same time. Soon after, whistles were used against certain politicians, with protest leaders directing protesters to blow whistles at certain politicians (those they believed were corrupt). In short, the whistle has become the symbol of resistance for the protesters.

Bluesky Channel is the local cable TV channel which is closely associated with the protest and its leaders. It has been broadcasting from the front line of the protest from the very beginning. The channel's logo is a blue lighting bolt. When the protest had grown larger, both the leader and the Channel attempted to change the symbol of the protest from an ordinary whistle to a lightning-shaped whistle in particular. They eventually sold "official" lightning-shaped whistles to the protesters and claimed the revenue would help them finance the protests.

Like just about anything in Thailand that sells well, once the lightning-shaped whistle grew popular, other merchants began to manufacture and sell "unofficial" lightning-shaped whistles to the protesters. Once it found out, Bluesky took to Facebook to angrily claim that it owned the copyright on the lightning-shaped whistle and called for the protest guards to investigate.

On January 15th, Bluesky finally had the protest guards confiscate unofficial lightning-shaped whistles sold in the protest area by the hawkers and proudly posted the "confiscated" stuff on its Facebook page with some statements that basically said: "If you sell it, we will confiscate it."

There have been a bunch of different reactions to this. Some are claiming the guards did the right thing since the protest is against "corruption" and immorality -- being immoral can be a legitimate political accusation in Thailand -- and, to them, copyright infringement is also a kind of corruption or immoral act. To them, confiscating it is totally legitimate.

Others, however, say that even if the unofficial lightning-shaped whistles really infringe on Bluesky Channel's copyright, there shouldn't be any confiscation. Their argument is that Bluesky Channel's priority should be broadening the political alliance as widely as possible, not on selling merchandise for profit. Furthermore, there are some ironic comments that the protest itself played unlicensed music and many of the "Anonymous" Guy Fawkes masks used by protesters violated Time Warner's intellectual property. (This issue is quite complicated. The pro-government -- or pro-Thaksin, or pro-democracy as they call themselves -- groups always wear what they call "the Red Shirt." However, anti-Thaksin groups' symbols have changed over time. First, there was the Yellow Shirt, then the Multi-Colored Shirt, the Anonymous wearing Guy Fawkes mask and finally the Whistle as the latest incarnation. All these anti-Thaksin groups have different leaders, but they have roughly the same ideology, and the same goal of overthrowing everything related to Thaksin.)

It's unclear how a Thai court would react should this kind of copyright infringement case go on trial. Product design infringement cases are quite rare in Thailand. Thailand's Copyright Act is quite short and relies a lot on the courts' interpretation of the situation. Therefore, we do not even quite know what is really an infringement by any national legal standard.

Throughout this confiscation process, no actual police have been involved -- just the private protest guards. To some, this suggests that this kind of action is actually theft, which is surely a crime worse than copyright infringement by any international standard. Finally, it is totally understandable why the protesters did not call on the police to arrest those selling pirated whistles, because, as the protest went on, the protesters -- especially the guards -- showed a rather strong hostility toward the police and (not surprisingly) vice versa. In the end, however, there's an odd bit of copyright suddenly becoming an issue in the middle of large political protests.

The author, a copyright scholar in Thailand, has asked to remain anonymous, noting that with the current political climate in Thailand, using your real name in discussing anything related to the protests can be dangerous.

from the intellectual-property-reichs dept

We've had dust-ups in the restaurant industry over trademarks before. Whether it was Psy vs. Gangnam Style Restaurant, which turned out to be a nothing, Nutella vs. restaurants promoting their products, or Waffle House vs. rap music, the conflict is there, but I feel like it lacks a certain gravitas. A little of what the French call je ne sais quoi. The closest we've come to anything satisfying was IHOP vs. God, but I'm going to disqualify that one for being outside the mortal coil (side note: Heavenly Coil would be a great name for a punk band or strip club). Fortunately, we've finally got a trademark dispute with some real personalities. Two titans on the world stage that the cameras can do close-ups on as they battle this out.

I'm of course talking about the potential for a legal battle between Colonel Sanders and Adolf Hitler. Some brief background is probably in order. See, apparently there's something of a trend in Thailand for taking well-known cultural icons and changing their images just enough to represent history's most dasterdly megalomaniac. As a result, you'll get teletubbies with Hitler's face on them, or a cute little panda with a toothbrush mustache and a glare that says, "Those bamboo stalks better not be Jewish." And the latest victim of this Hitler-ization is of the KFC spokesman.

Kentucky Fried Chicken told The Huffington Post Friday it may take "legal action" against a fried chicken shop named Hitler that sports a storefront emblem very similar to KFC's, only with Adolf Hitler's head replacing Colonel Sanders.

"We find it extremely distasteful and are considering legal action since it is an infringement of our brand trademark and has nothing to do with us," a spokesman for KFC parent Yum! told The Huffington Post in an email.

Look, I can't blame KFC for being upset that their beloved Colonel Sanders was morphed into Hitler. Adolf Hitler murdered roughly 11 or 12 million people in one of the world's greatest travesties. The Colonel only kills chickens, people. Delicious, succulent, chickens. So if KFC wants to go the trans-oceanic trademark route, it may be hard to blame them, but how much of an effect would it actually have?

As it turns out, a mild-flavored recipe effect at best. In order to avoid criticism of the same kind a couple of years back, the restaurant changed its facade, name, and shop images a bit. Now, instead of being called Hitler's Chicken, the name has reportedly been changed to H-ler, because that's apparently better. Also, it looks as though the Hitler image has been removed. Not that this is erasing anyone's memory, of course. People pass that shop every day and know it was Hitler's Chicken. Nobody ever confused Hitler with Colonel Sanders and nobody ever actually thought less of KFC or their trademark because of the stunt.

You can understand why KFC was upset, but it's hard not to see the futulity in all this. KFC may not have realized at first that the images of a Hitler Colonel were a year or so old, but this can serve as a lesson in how the market and society will usually do all the legal work for you if you give them enough time and spotlights.

from the deals-behind-closed-doors dept

Although things have gotten rather quiet on the TPP front, that doesn't mean that the juggernaut has been halted. On the contrary: after Canada and Mexico signed up to join the negotiations under highly unfavorable terms, it now looks like Thailand is about to do the same, as the Bangkok Post reports:

Thailand's entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be a highlight of the visit [to Thailand] by the US president amid concern by activists over the consequences of the far-reaching free trade pact.

Those concerns are chiefly about access to medicines at affordable prices. This became an area of contention after previous bilateral negotiations with the US collapsed in the wake of the military coup in Thailand, as infojustice.org explains:

In late 2006, after the FTA [Free Trade Agreement] negotiations had fallen apart, the Ministry of Health began granting compulsory licenses for needed medicine. Between November 2006 and January 2007, it granted licenses for patents on two antiretroviral drugs (efavirenz and lopinavir+ritonavir) and clopidogrel, a heart medication sold by Bristol Myers Squibb. The licenses were issued for government use, after years of prior negotiation with the patent holders, and include a 0.5% royalty rate. USTR responded by putting Thailand on the 301 Priority Watch List, citing "further indications of a weakening of respect for patents, as the Thai Government announced decisions to issue compulsory licenses for several patented pharmaceutical products." Thailand has remained in the Special 301 Report ever since, and it was subject to an "out of cycle review."

If Thailand joins the TPP negotiations, it will undoubtedly be forced to rescind those compulsory licenses -- one of the key features of TPP is its strengthening of protection for pharma patents. The inevitable consequence of that will be increased prices in Thailand for key medicines, and more people suffering and dying as a result. It would be interesting to know what pressure has been brought to bear on the Thai government to take what seems such a damaging step for its people, when other nations are moving in precisely the opposite direction.

from the but-given-a-suspended-sentence dept

For a few years now we've covered how the Thai government's ridiculous "lese majeste" laws that forbid insulting the monarchy have been used repeatedly to censor open forums and arrest or intimidate critics. In one case, which we wrote about a few years ago, the webmaster for the popular Thai site Prachatai was arrested for failing to delete comments of users on the site (not written or approved by her) that were deemed offensive to the monarchy fast enough. The post and the comments happened in 2008... but the woman, Chiranuch Premchaiporn (and better known as Jiew), wasn't arrested until 2010, right after she returned from a trip abroad where she was speaking about the importance of internet freedom.

At a time when countries who want to thrive and flourish should be encouraging greater and more widespread use of the internet, convicting a webmaster because the government doesn't like some comments that others left on a website is exactly the wrong approach. It goes against basic principles of free speech and properly applying liability. Yes, lots of countries (including the US at times) have been chipping away at such basic and fundamental ideas online, but it's still disappointing to see countries effectively guaranteeing a lack of openness and innovation within their own borders thanks to moves like this one.

from the goodbye-tourism dept

I'm curious if Thailand is purposely trying to kill off its rather lucrative tourism business. We've discussed in the past that Thailand has strict laws against "insulting" the king. These lèse majesté laws are used widely in Thailand to stop any sort of political criticism. They've been used to block entire sites including YouTube, and to arrest website owners for the comments on their site.

Lately, Thailand has been trying to use those laws against US citizens. Last month, we wrote about the case of Anthony Chai, a US citizen who had posted some anonymous comments critical of the king. In that case, the Canadian/US firm that hosted the site handed Chai's identity over to the Thai government without question, and Chai was arrested recently while visiting.

In a similar case, US citizen Joe Gordon had posted a link on his blog to an unauthorized bio of the king... and was then arrested when visiting Thailand, the news has come out that after months of denying the charges, Gordon has decided he can't take it any more and has agreed to plead guilty.

"I do not want to fight this case. I plead guilty to all the accusations," he told judges.

At this point, I'm not sure why any US citizen would ever agree to visit Thailand again. If you merely link to an unauthorized bio of the king, you could end up in jail. Furthermore, I'm curious as to what the Thai leadership thinks it's accomplishing with these actions. Honestly, without these cases, I'd never even know about the Thai king at all. It seems like each of these actions only brings greater negative attention on the king than if he'd just ignored such things.

from the shame-on-netfirms dept

We've been talking a lot about the importance of anonymity online, and are always sad to hear about companies that simply rollover in identifying anonymous users for no good reason. A newly filed lawsuit reveals a particularly ridiculous situation, summarized nicely by Paul Alan Levy:

Anthony Chai, a naturalized US citizen who emigrated from Thailand, runs a computer store in California. Using the store's computers, Chai and his customers posted anonymous comments critical of the king of Thailand on a Thai-language pro-democracy website, Manusaya.com. Thailand forbids criticism of the king – the legal principle of lese majeste – and when the Canadian Internet hosting firm Netfirms (which is incorporated in Delaware and maintains a US office) received a complaint from the Thai government, it not only shut down the web site but provided Chai’s IP address and two e-mail addresses associated with the posts. Thailand has long shown its insistence on applying the principle even to criticism voiced in other countries, when the speakers expose themselves to its authority by, for example, visiting the country.

When Chai was home visiting family in Thailand, he was detained at the airport and subjected to extensive questioning and to threats of violence against his family both in the United States and in Thailand. He was also repeatedly questioned in the United States, with prosecutors using the threat of prosecution, and dangling and threatened with prosecution. The prosecutor also demanded expensive gifts. Chai has been officially charged in the Thai courts with lèse majesté, and consequently he can no longer return to his native land to visit his family. Ironically, most of Chai's posts were directed at the injustice of the lese majeste laws, rather than at the Thai king himself.

We've pointed out how Thailand has been known to overreact to criticism of its king before, and this is even more crazy, seeing as Chai was mainly criticizing the laws that make criticizing the king illegal. But, the other key issue here is the fact that Netfirms simply handed over Chai's info, without consideration of whether or not that was appropriate or if it violated Chai's rights. It also handed over the info without "requesting that the officials obtain the proper court order, supboena, or warrant as required by the Treaty with Thailand on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters." Chai is now suing Netfirms, claiming negligence and violation of California laws, including its constitutional right to privacy. Should be an interesting case to watch.